Herald of Steel

Looking at the huge machine slowly bob up and down, Alexander then began to ask Marvin some technical questions about it, such as its output and efficiency.

"So much coal does it use every day? And how many ingots can you turn into sheet iron?" Alexander inquired.

"Umm…. my lord we use close to 200 kg of coal during the day and can process a few hundred ingots." With the help of the supervisor there, Marvin was able to state the numbers.

And using this Alexander was able to roughly work out the amount of work done.

He did this by knowing that burning 1 kg of coal produced 30 MJ of energy and that the hammer the engine was driving weighed 50 kg and moved a few meters up and down around 10 times a minute.

All this got him a grand total of 1 horsepower, at an efficiency of less than 1%!

It would have been much easier and cheaper to hire a couple of men to manually beat the iron into sheets than going through so much trouble.

'Amazing! Fucking amazing!' Thus, as the man arrived at the answer, although he had expected it, he still cursed at the dismal result.

'No wonder it took so long to develop the steam engine. No one without prescience would think to dump so much money and effort into something so wasteful, especially not when cheap, slave labor was so easily available.'

The reason why the steam engine was invented when it was in Alexander's previous life was due to a lot of socio-economic conditions coming together.

James Watt's engine was a greatly improved version of Alexander's engine, one that produced around 10 horsepower and had roughly 7% to 10% efficiency.

He was able to get to that efficiency by taking Alexander's engine and flipping it from a vertical position to a horizontal position, then using a series of valves to make the steam push the piston in both directions, not just one.

So the steam would first push the metal piston forward, then use a separate channel controlled by a valve to loop back and hit it again at the back thus pushing it 'backward', before finally exiting through another channel.

And even that complex resultant machine was considered quite crappy, making Watt try and make many more improvements to try and bring the number up throughout his life.

But Alexander was no mechanical engineer and had never seen an actual steam engine.

Nor was he a genius who could develop the relatively complex mechanism on his own.

Simply speaking, the thought of using the same stream twice never occurred to him.

Thus although Alexander's engine was a great invention to be used as a prototype and a proof of concept, it was nowhere near efficient enough to start the next Industrial Revolution.

Using manual labor was still the cheaper option.

'Baby steps. Baby steps. Rome was not built in a day.' However, Alexander consoled himself like so, knowing it was not realistic to reach the moon with a single jump.

Since he had been able to make it to this extent, he would be able to slowly make improvements to it, until he eventually figured something out.

Thus he ultimately thanked Marvin for accomplishing this given task,

"Good job, Marvin. I'm quite impressed by what you have accomplished here. This machine will surely change the world in ways we cannot even imagine. And you will be a part of its history. Congratulations!"

Listening to Alexander's high praise and grand statements, the blacksmith at first produced some doubts in his heart.

For he did not see this machine as anything special to warrant such acclaim.

In his eyes, this was more like a rich man's novel toy than anything useful.

'Whatever this thing can do, a couple of slaves would be able to do for one third the price.' Marvin calculated.

But although the machine made no sense to him from a pragmatic standpoint, who was he to contradict the lord of the land?

Even if Alexander said it could turn night into day, the man would have agreed to curry favor with Axx.

Thus putting on a fawning smile, Marvin agreed in a saccharine tone, 'You flatter me, my lord, you flatter me. It is all by your grace. I did nothing. Nothing at all."

"Haha, no, no, you lower yourself too much, Mister Marvin. I have indeed noticed how you have shaped the condenser pipe into a V… tapered shape." Alexander for a moment let slip the word 'V', which did not exist, only correcting himself at the last moment.

And then finished by revealing, "Let me guess why you did this…. It was to increase the pressure of the jet of water, right?"

The shape of the pipe, which had the mouth of the V at the top and the end at the bottom would force the incoming water to have increased velocity in order to not violate Pascal's Law, thus spraying the steam with a jet of water, and not simply flowing into the chamber.

"Yes, my lord! Yes! As expected of you! Hahaha," The fact that Alexander had been able to see through the reason at a glance seemed to genuinely please Marvin, as the man repeatedly nodded with a grin.

He did not think Alexander would be able to see through this adjustment so easily.

It was something Marvin had figured out on his own, after observing how if you squeezed a leather water pouch, the water squirted out instead of flowing out.

And he was quite proud of himself for being able to do so.

Thus the fact that Alexander was able to see through it so easily amazed him.

And the man was once again convinced there was something special with this man.

As they were speaking, suddenly, Alexander felt the machine behind them become sluggish, and soon the ever present 'twank- twank' sound disappeared, causing him to curiously took back the machine.

And then curiously look at the supervisor in charge of overseeing the thing.

Sensing the gaze the man quickly endeavored to placate Alexander, "Many apologises my lord, but the machine seems to stop working after a few hours. And starts up again after an hour or two. We have been unable to find the problem."

And hearing this, Alexander instantly stole a subtle glance at Marvin.

Because he had heard nothing about this.

It seemed in order to show Alexander that everything was fine and dandy and thus claim the job was perfect, Marvin chose to gloss over this fact.

Something that quite annoyed Alexander.

And something that made Marvin suddenly go beet red at being found out.

He had prayed over and over for that not to happen while Alexander was visiting, but alas.

"Did you know about this?" Towards this unexpected malfunction, Alexander then sought this inquiry.

"Ehh… I was once told that the machine had stopped working. But when I came to check it, the machine was working fine. So I thought … everything was well. It just seems to want to take a rest every few hours... Like a horse hehe." The sheepish way Marvin grinned the answer left a lot to be desired regarding his credibility.

And Alexander could write it with a golden pen the man was lying.

'What is this? A living being that needs rest?' He snorted at the weak excuse.

But he did not choose to wring the man over it, knowing the number of talented people under him was too precious to risk losing.

Thus in a strict tone, we ordered, "Don't ever do this again. Whenever there is a problem, however small it may be, always be sure to inform me. This is your first and last warning."

"Yes! Yes, my lord. I swear!" Marvin's voice was both sharp and high pitched, almost sounding like he was squealing.

He was both relieved and afraid.

Now, the reason why the machine was suddenly stopping after a few hours would eventually be discovered due to small amounts of air being admitted to the cylinder with the steam.

Water usually contains some dissolved air, and boiling the water releases this with the steam. This air could not be condensed by the water spray and gradually accumulated until the engine became "wind logged".

And to prevent this, a release valve called a "snifting clack" or snifter valve would be introduced near the bottom of the cylinder.

This would open briefly when the steam was being first admitted and the non-condensable gas would be driven from the cylinder.

And this solution would from not the blacksmiths at the workshop but another unlikely source.

It would come from a mining engineer who would come to Alexander with this for a promised cash prize.

For you see, Alexander would post the full schematics of his precious engine in the free public library, for all to see and then make an official declaration detailing rich rewards for being able to make improvements to this 'steam engine'.

At 3 horsepower and 3% efficiency, Alexander offered 30,000 ropal!

At 6 horsepower and 6% efficiency, Alexander offered 100,000 ropal!

And at 10 horsepower and 10 % efficiency, Alexander offered 1 million ropals!

Yes.

Since Alexander could not invent James Watt's engine, he was going to incentivize others to do it.

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